Keyboard

I use a Redox, bought from falba.tech.

During university I switched from the default german layout QWERTZ to Neo2, which is optimized for german and contains a very nice symbol layer. Since I have been working for disy, getting my custom-made Redox Keyboard and writing a lot more in english in general, I had to adapt to my new environment. Currently I use a mix between Hands Down and Neo2, which is presented here.

The Layout is implemented with QMK directly on the keyboard. On the OS it assumes a QWERTZ to keep the computer usable for co-workers in pair programming situations.

Legend

This article uses the ISO/IEC 9995-7:2009 notation to be as OS-independent as possible. However, ⌫ is used for Backspace since ␈ is hard to read.¹

Keys in brackets [ ] are held down to activate the layer.
multuiple keys next to each other refer to a sequence.
MultipleInOne refers to multiple keys pressed at the same time.

𝒜 Layer 1 (Alpha)

Inspired by Hands Down Neu. Several changes have been made:

• Move Z to the left top.
• Special characters are the ones I personally need most often.
• Move W away from a picky position.
• Have a TH key.

Upper Thumb Keys

• 𝓛 - Prints “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet”.
• ♚ - Executes an AutoKey Macro to e.g. prefill some input fields.
• 📅 - Prints the current date in ISO 8601.

Function Row (Top-most)

• ⚡ - Maps to ⎈⇧A, opens the “All Actions” Menu in many apps.
• ⎉ - Swaps Focus between Browser and IntelliJ

Control/Meta Row (Bottom-most) and Thumb-Clusters

• ⎌ - Maps to ⎈Z - the common “Undo” combination.
• ⎌ - Maps to ⎈⇧Z - the common “Redo” combination, allthough it is not that unified.
• 🔊 Volume Up and 🔉Volume Down

Inner 1.5u keys

• Tab- and Tab+ - mapped to ⎈⇞ and ⎈⇟ since these are most common for switching to the previous/next tab.

Combos

• FS -> ⎈X
• MN -> ⎈C
• PT -> ⎈V
• ’, -> cation
• “A -> tion
• ,W -> ment
• .E -> ight

Adaptive Keys

Using this patch, QMK supports Adaptive Keys. This allows a key to change based on the key pressed before it to fix some hard-to-reach digraphs.

• FL -> FM
• AH -> AU

◆ Layer 2 (German & Higher Function Keys)

German Umlauts, F11 and F12.

♠ Layer 3 (Symbol)

Very loosely based on Layer 3 of Neo2. Some keys have been removed since they are already on the main layer, freeing some positions up for other symbols. The left side is emptier since the layer modifier button has to be hold in order to access it.

♣ Layer 4 (Navigation and Numbers)

Instead of mimiking a “normal” numpad, 1, 2 and 3 and 0 are on the home row because Benford’s Law seems to apply for me. The left-side follows Neo2’s Layer 4 navigation, but ⇞ and ⇟ have been moved to the bottom row to keep the “picky up” position unassigned.